Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 index and the S&P MidCap 400 index both reached an all-time high.

"While it may seem like the market's rallied too far too fast, we continue to think that the major averages will follow the small and mid-cap leadership to make all-time highs this year," said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The risk-on trade is there."

President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver his annual address at 9 pm ET, and will outline policy goals for his second term. He is expected to focus on the "sequester" of automatic spending cuts that will kick in after March 1 if Congress takes no action to stop them.

"Everyone's expecting a campaign speech from Obama," said Brian Battle, vice president of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners. "It will be interesting to see the specifics of how big of an agenda he has an his time frame—that will set the tone for the sequestration spending talks that will happen in the next two weeks."

CNBC's Scott Wapner speaks to Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO, about the political and economic environment in the U.S. and whether activists are good for the markets.

Appleslumped even after proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis said it backs Apple's proposition 2—the ability for the iPhone maker to issue preferred stock, but with the approval with shareholders. Top proxy firm ISS made a similar recommendation last week.

"Apple makes bold and ambitious bets on product, and we're conservative financially...To add to that fact, we're returning $45 billion to shareholders through a combination of dividends and buybacks," said Cook, speaking at Goldman Sachs' Technology and Internet conference. "Last quarter alone, the cash flow from operations was over $23 billion. It's an incredible privilege where we can seriously consider returning additional cash to our shareholders. The management team and the board are in very-active discussions. That's what our shareholders want." (Read More:Cook: Apple Doesn't Have 'Depression' Mentality)

So far, more than 71 percent of S&P 500 companies have posted quarterly results, with 70 percent of companies exceeding earnings expectations and 66 percent topping revenue estimates, according to Thomson Reuters. If all remaining companies report earnings in line with forecasts, earnings will be up 5.3 percent from last year's fourth quarter.

On the tech front, Facebookdeclined after Bernstein downgraded the social-networking giant to "market perform" from "outperform." And Qualcommslid after JPMorgan cut its rating on the semiconductor company to "neutral" from "overweight."

On the economic front, small business sentiment edged up in January to 88.9 last month, according to the optimism index from the National Federation of Independent Business, as owners anticipated better business conditions in the next six months, despite higher taxes and looming government spending cuts.

Treasury prices held their losses after the government auctioned $32 billion in 3-year notes at a high yield of 0.411 percent. The bid-to-cover ratio was 3.59.